Sliced Bread

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

Sliced Bread podcast image

BBC Radio 4 FM

Sliced Bread Presents: Smart Thermostats

Sliced Bread series image

Smart Thermostats

BBC Radio 4 - Sliced Bread, Smart Thermostats

Can smart thermostats save you money on energy bills?

Greg Foot investigates smart thermostats. Can they save you money on energy bills this winter? Are they the best thing since Sliced Bread? Or just marketing BS?

Can Smart Thermostats save you money on energy bills?

Temperatures are falling and conversations are already turning to whether or not the heating has been turned on! Although energy prices have come down a little since last year, the withdrawal of universal Government support to alleviate the cost could mean bills stay high for a lot of people. 

Listener Wendy is already doing a lot to save money (having listened to a previous Sliced Bread episode on Portable Heaters - check it out on BBC Sounds!) but she's keen to know if the addition of a Smart Thermostat might make even more of a difference. 

Are they as clever as they claim to be when it comes to controlling the heating in your home?

If you’ve seen an ad, trend or fad relating to another consumer product and wonder if there’s any evidence to back up a claim, then email us: sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or you can send a voice note to our WhatsApp number: 07543 306807

PRESENTER: Greg Foot
PRODUCER: Simon Hoban

Sliced Bread Presents

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Sliced Bread podcast series image

Documentaries

Podcasts

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Factual: Science & Nature

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast.

While Sliced Bread takes a break, we serve up... Toast. Sean Farrington examines the spectacular failures of wonder products and businesses which had promised so much.

While Sliced Bread takes a break we serve up... Toast. A study of the spectacular failures of brands which had promised so much to consumers.    

In each episode, the presenter and BBC business journalist, Sean Farrington, examines one big idea. What did it promise? Why did people back it? Why did they get burnt?  

Some of the world's most successful businesses have also brought us some of the world's most remarkable failures. So, what led them to be toast? And what can we learn from their stories today? 

Sean unpicks all the early optimism, hype and ambition. He learns about the tremendous success of a brand before hearing how it faltered, with help from expert commentators and people who were directly involved. How do they view things now and what, if anything, could have been done differently? 

The self-made millionaire and serial entrepreneur, Sam White, is alongside him, analysing the missteps that changed a brand's fortunes and reaching her own, often instructive, conclusions.  

From big tech to high street retail and, of course, food, Toast tackles the business ideas that, one way or another, ended up cooked. 

Sliced Bread returns for a new batch of investigations in February. In the new series, Greg Foot will investigate more of the latest so-called wonder products to find out whether they really are the best thing since sliced bread. In the meantime, Toast is available in the Sliced Bread feed on BBC Sounds.

Toast is a BBC Audio North production for BBC Radio 4.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Sliced Bread Presents

Smart Thermostats

Genres

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4